


blind date

by domokunrainbowkinz



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blind Date, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Guilt, Injury, Jonathan Sims (Mentioned) - Freeform, Martin Blackwood (Mentioned) - Freeform, Sasha James (mentioned) - Freeform, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), Tim Stoker (mentioned) - Freeform, also the injury doesn't occur on the date and is in a dream, and it's from an accident, the s1 gang is mentioned at the end as footnotes, u go on a date w/ someone n they know everything about u wyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domokunrainbowkinz/pseuds/domokunrainbowkinz
Summary: Statement of Eve Astankova, regarding her experience on a strange blind date. Original statement given 22nd April, 2016.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	blind date

**Case #0162204**

**Statement of Eve Astankova, regarding her experience on a strange blind date. Original statement given 22 nd April, 2016.**

* * *

A word of advice: don’t go on blind dates.

It really should be common knowledge. There’s a bunch of horror stories out there about blind dates gone bad, ranging from awkward silences to outright throwing-water-in-face scenarios, or just plain crazy people who collected teeth as a hobby or something. I’ve certainly heard of these stories, but when my friend, Janice – Janice Kim, set me up on a date with their classmate, I didn’t really have a choice, even when I _told_ them not to do that. Something about how we’d be “so cute together”, and how she was “totally my type”. Janice had already booked the restaurant and everything, and I wasn’t the type to just stand someone up, so I decided to give it a try.

Janice didn’t tell me too much about their classmate, except that her name was Cassie…Leung? I’m not sure what her last name is, sorry. Anyways, Janice told me she was a journalism student who’s super interested in true crime. Now, I’ll admit, that caught my attention a bit, as I do like listening to these types of podcasts while I do lab work. Nothing like listening to the gory details of a grisly murder while you’re locked in doing mindless cell culture for hours. I figured that’d be a good starting point for the date, which I’m sure will just amount to nothing, so I thought over a few of my favourite cases as I made my way to the restaurant. I got there before Cassie, so I sat at the table by myself while I waited for her. After about ten minutes, I started to get the feeling I was stood up, but she eventually arrived.

I’ll have to admit, she was cute – Asian, with mid-length hair and an inviting smile. She apologized for being late, something about being held up by traffic, but I assured her it was fine. We ordered our food without any difficulty, and afterwards we started to talk. I asked her how she met Janice, and she told me that they had a group project in one of their courses together. Apparently, they had “hit it off” right from the beginning since they had similar interests. She told me they never hung out much outside of class, but they would occasionally message each other. I admitted that I was surprised when they set us up on a blind date. She laughed and said she thought the same, but her tone told me otherwise. She almost sounded like she was in on it too, like she knew Janice would set us up together.

We talked more about our respective areas of study. It’s probably because she’s a journalism student, but she knew a lot more about genetic research than I’d expected. Compared to my abysmal knowledge of journalism in general, and I was feeling pretty self-conscious. Whenever I talked, she would look me right in the eyes with that easy smile, but something about the way she stared unsettled me. It almost felt like she was rifling through my thoughts, but I ignored it as best as I can.

Our food arrived soon, and we kept talking between bites. I decided to bring up a true crime case I recently heard about on a podcast, and when I did, the smile on Cassie’s face widened ever so slightly. As we started discussing the details of it, her smile just kept widening and widening, like she _enjoyed_ talking about how brutally the victim was murdered. Now, I will admit that sometimes I am a little guilty of this as well. The details are just so _fascinating_ a lot of the times, and while I know it’s wrong to trivialize what were undoubtedly tragic events, I can’t deny the subconscious entertainment I get whenever a murder is described in detail.

Cassie though…she talked about these murders like it was nothing more but a show for her to enjoy. The way that she described how creative one murderer was for mincing up his victims in a meat grinder, and how they were her “favourite murders”. It was, frankly, quite disrespectful, and I started to feel uncomfortable about this. I tried to politely change the subject to safer topics, but it seemed like she noticed. She stared at me and, with a smirk, asked, “Is this getting too graphic for you? I thought you enjoyed hearing about these things too.”

At this point, I knew I wasn’t going on a second date with her, so I just confessed and said that yes, this conversation was making me uneasy. Still smiling, she said, “Of course it is. But that’s part of the appeal, isn’t it? Watching people suffer unnerves and excites you at the same time. Isn’t that why you just watched while your brother cried from his broken arm?”

I froze. My mind went blank at that moment, and the only thought I had at the time was: _How did she know?_

She continued to talk. “I know about that, you know. Sure, he eventually was fine, but your parents got mad at you for just watching, right? Why didn’t you do anything?”

I tried to move, to speak, but I couldn’t. Instead, all I could do was stare as her eyes bore into mine. I felt something snaking its way around my mind, picking apart every experience I had with precision and analyzing it, before putting it back. Like my mind was a library, and she was merely perusing around and doing her research.

“I know you’re wondering how I know all this, and I also know that you’re terrified. I can see it.” She laughed after the last sentence, almost as if it was an inside joke I was not privy to. “But this _is_ what you’ve always wanted, right? To be seen? You always felt like you never connected with anyone, that no one ever _knew_ you, truly, for who you are. But _I_ can. I can understand you, _know_ you, inside-out if you’d like.”

She leaned forward. “I like you, Eve. You remind me a lot of myself from before, and I can see what you can become if you’d let me show you. Think about it for a bit.”

Once she leaned back, it was like I was released from a trance. I could hear the bustle of the restaurant around me again, and I wasted no time in grabbing my bag and leaving. I think I ended up not paying for the dinner, but at that point, I didn’t care. I just needed to get out of there. The entire way out, I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck, like an itch. I still felt her gaze on me even when I got home, like she was analyzing and judging my every move. I took a melatonin pill that night because I _knew_ I’d have a hard time falling asleep after such a terrifying date. I thought a good night’s rest would make me feel better, and I’d chew my Janice out tomorrow for setting up with such a weirdo.

I did not get a good night’s sleep that night.

Look, I know that your institute doesn’t take dream statements, but I need to include this here because it’s relevant. The first thing you need to know is that I don’t ever dream. Lots of people tell me about having strange dreams of missing their final exam or giving a presentation naked in front of a panel, but I never had a dream vivid enough for me to remember it. That night though…I honesty blame it on the melatonin. I heard about how taking too much of it could make nightmares more vivid.

I dreamt of when my brother broke his arm when he was seven. I was nine at the time, and he had fallen off the chair he was standing on while we were watching some fireworks outside our window. My parents took him to the hospital immediately and he got put in a cast for basically the entire summer. He’s fine now, obviously. Kids break bones all the time, so his experience wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. We sometimes talk about it randomly, and he would always joke about how I never did anything and just watched. I’d always tell him that I was just shocked, and also that our mum came into our room right after he started screaming. And well…I mean, I was nine. I didn’t know first aid at the time, so there really wasn’t much I could do.

In the dream, it was like I was reliving the experience. My brother and I were watching fireworks outside our window, bright colours flashing in the sky. I was tall enough to watch comfortably at the window, while my brother had to stand on a chair to see over the ledge. I snapped at him to move over a bit, because our elbows keep bumping and I was starting to get annoyed. He grumbled, then started to get off the chair, but at the last second, his foot slipped.

You know how in the movies, when something like this happens, time slows down? That wasn’t what happened. I barely had time to register the heavy _thud_ of my brother landing on his elbow before he started screaming in pain.

 _I need to help him_ , I thought to myself, but I…I just couldn’t move. I stared at him as he clutched his elbow, his face contorted in pain as tears streamed down his red face. I would always tell everyone it was shock, but -

“See? I was right about you,” a voice said. I looked up to see Cassie standing beside me, and I clapped my hands over my mouth before a scream could escape out of my throat.

Eyes. All I saw were eyes. They covered every inch of her face, her neck, even her hands, blinking and focused solely on me.

“You remember this, right?” Cassie asked. “Watching him screaming…it’s delicious, isn’t it? I get it.”

 _No, it’s not_ , I wanted to say, but the words won’t come out, because…she was right.

I was never truthful when I told my brother I didn’t do anything because I was shocked. I didn’t do anything because I was fascinated.

I had seen people get hurt at school, and hell, I’d lost count of the number of times I cried when I hurt myself as a kid. But there was something visceral in the way he cried, like no pain in the world could match up to what he was feeling. It was mesmerizing and unsettling, and I wanted to drink it all in, fully digest what I was looking at, so I can…what? Savour it? What was there to savour about suffering?

“What _isn’t_ there to savour about suffering?”

The question sent a shudder through me. Cassie smiled – or, at least I thought she was smiling. She had no mouth or nose, but all of her eyes curved upward with glee as they gazed at me.

I felt terrible. In this dream, our mum never came into our room. Cassie and I watched as my brother cried and cried and _cried_. He looked at me, his eyes red rimmed and wet.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” he sobbed. “Help me!”

I expected myself to react. I expected every nerve in my body to light up and _move_ , to run to his side and stabilize his arm, to call for my parents, to do _anything_ that will get him to stop crying.

Instead, I kept watching. The more he cried, the more I wanted to watch, to see what he would do next. Would he continue to cry until he had no tears left? Would he get up and stumble his way to our parents, gritting his teeth the entire way?

Somehow, I knew that in this dream version of the event, our parents weren’t home. My brother had no one to call for help, and he barely knew how to use a telephone. In a way, I wasn’t there either. I merely…watched.

I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to watch and observe, and that realization terrified me.

“I was like you too, once – scared, conflicted, confused. I remember feeling like a monster for basking in someone’s suffering,” Cassie said.

“What happened?” I asked. The words just somehow slipped out of my mouth.

I could no longer hear my brother crying. The world closed around me until it was just me and Cassie, facing each other, her numerous eyes focused like laser points at me.

She reached towards me and cradled my face in her hands. They were warm – they made _me_ feel warm. Like the gentle embrace of a lover who knew every single facet of you, saw the ugliest parts that you’re ashamed of, and still chose to love you.

“I think you already know the answer,” she replied, her many eyes blinking at me. “The question is, what will happen to _you_?”

Before I could ask what she meant, she leaned in and…well, I think she kissed me.

I woke up after that. Even now, I’m still not sure whether or not she kissed me, but then again, it was a dream – no, a nightmare. Weird things happen in nightmares. I chalked it up to a bad reaction to the melatonin pills and the terrible date, and I went on about my day as normally as I could.

Janice had called me and asked how the date went, and when I told them about what a bad experience I had, they…genuinely seemed shocked. Cassie apparently was nothing but kind to them. Never pried, never gave off any strange vibes, aside from her borderline obsession with true crime. I told Janice that having a “borderline obsession” with true crime was a huge red flag, but they pointed out that I was the same too, and to “not be such a hypocrite”.

I know they meant it as a joke, but with what happened recently, I may have reacted a bit more strongly than I’d wanted. Long story short, I basically yelled at them and hung up. I’m pretty sure they’re still mad at me, but they’ll get over it eventually.

I tried keeping Cassie out of my thoughts, but that’s pretty hard after having a nightmare like _that_. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said to me, about how she could “show me what I could become”. What did she mean by that? Of course, it probably means nothing and is just her trying to be scary, but somehow, that explanation didn’t satisfy me. I needed to know _exactly_ what she meant by that.

So then, I did something I swore I wouldn’t do. I texted Janice and asked for Cassie’s number. They never responded, probably because they were mad at me, but it turned out I didn’t need to bother in the first place. Later that day, I received some texts from an unknown number. I included a screenshot of them in this file, so you can take a look if you want. If you’re wondering about my answer…I said yes. I know, I know, it’s a very stupid idea and I said earlier that she wasn’t getting a second date, but…I just…I needed to _know_ , okay? And I couldn’t forget that nightmare. It was terrifying, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she made me feel when she touched me, when she looked at me, the way her voice dug deep into my being and pried me open to reveal the ugliest parts of myself I tried to hide. I…I wanted to see if she could really, _truly_ , make me feel that way. I’d never felt so _known_ in my life, and I found myself craving for that intimacy again, even if it was just for a second.

I thought I’d come here to make a statement before I go on my next date with her. Sorry if it’s not as…I don’t know, _qualified_ as your other statements. I’m not really sure what I want to get out from this. Maybe she really will murder me and this is the only evidence that would point to her as the culprit. If I turn up on the news dead…well, you’ll know what happened.

* * *

**_Attached: screenshot of a series of texts from 020-xxxx-xxxx_ **

**15:27 -** hi eve, its cassie lol i got ur number from…it doesn’t matter :P I had a great time last night and I was wondering if ur free next Friday? That new Chinese place just opened n I thought we could go together for dinner or sumn asdf;;kfs

 **15:27** – id rly get to know u better sldfkslj; I feel like we have a lot in common

 **15:27** – also I wanna know for sure…u kissed back right

 **15:28** – anyways,,,Friday??

* * *

**NOTES**

**_-as Ms. Astankova mentioned in statement, she took melatonin pills before sleeping - > it has been reported that melatonin triggers vivid dreams. Dream most likely manifested as such due to her prior interaction with “Cassie”. Contact for follow-up statement (JS)_ **

**_-found information about Ms. Astankova from one of her friends: PhD student at Imperial College London researching novel gene therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, should be defending thesis soon. No criminal record or anything interesting. Tried contacting Cassie by using number in screenshot but no answer, also no voicemail, but searching on visit records showed she came in to give a statement in 2015. Should try finding it for context? (TS)_ **

**_-was able to contact Ms. Astankova for a follow up statement by telephone, said she didn’t have any more problems and is together with Cassie, is able to read minds? Called it “knowing”, not able to give when it started, able to answer questions without me asking them, very strange call (MB)_ **

**_-all calls coming in and out of institute should be recorded, retrieve recording of call and transcribe it. Take better notes (JS)_ **

**_-recording retrieved. Lots of static in some parts. Transcript below (SJ):_ **

**> **Hello? May I speak to Eve Astankova?

 **>** Yes, speaking. _*static*_ Oh, this is the Magnus Institute, right? Um, I don’t really have much of a follow up statement to give, I was mostly trying to um, vent a bit I guess. But it’s all good now, thanks for calling uh… _*static*_ Martin? Or Mr. Blackwood?

 **> **I – Alright, well – Wait, how did you know my name?

 **>** Oh, you told me, didn’t you? At the beginning of the call?

 **> **No, I-I’m fairly certain I did not.

 **> **Damn, I guess – I’m really sorry. It’s hard to control it, sorry about that.

 **>** Control it?

 **>** Oh, you know, sometimes I just…things pop into my head. _*static*_ No, not like mind-reading – actually, yeah it kinda is like mind reading. Don’t worry, I won’t pry on purpose, it just sometimes sounds like you said something to me out loud but…you know.

 **> **O-Okay, thank you for telling me that, Ms. Astankova –

 **> **Please, call me Eve. You’re okay with Martin, I presume?

 **> **Y-Yes, that’s fine, Eve, thank you. So…you aren’t interested in providing a follow-up statement?

 **> **No, it’s fine, really. I mean, yeah Cassie and I met up for our second date, but honestly it went pretty smoothly. Not much to report.

 **>** And has there been contact between the two of you since?

 **> **Yeah, we’re actually together now. _*static*_ Well, yeah she’s also beside me right now, but I meant that we’re **together** now, you know what I mean?

 **>** O-Oh I...Good for…you?

 **> *** _A laugh_ * Yeah, if I remember correctly, the statement I gave would’ve led you to believe otherwise, but honestly I was just a little freaked out then. There really wasn’t anything to be scared of back then, Cassie can just…come off a bit strong at first. * _Another laugh, in the background*_

 **> **I…see. Well that’s good to hear. If you don’t mind, Eve, would you be able to elaborate more on your…

 **> **The mind-reading? Ugh, it still sounds wrong – what’s that? * _A muffled voice in the background_ * Knowing? Is that what you call it? Okay, yeah, about the…Knowing. Really not much to say about it. Sometimes things just pop into my head, and I’d think it’s because you told me these things, when really you didn’t. I’m still trying to get used to it, differentiate what people say to me and what things I Know, but it still freaks some people out when I randomly say things about them that they never told me. _*static*_ When did it start? I really can’t say. I’d say recently? I can’t give you an exact date, I’m afraid.

 **>** I…see. Thank you for that.

 **> **No problem! I hope that’s enough information for you _*static*_ or, I guess, your boss. Jon, was it?

 **>** O-Oh, um –

 **>** He really is an arse, isn’t he? God, he was condescending as hell when I came in to give a statement, didn’t like him one bit. _*lots of static*_ Wait, seriously? Him? You honestly have the weirdest taste in _(??? really not sure if this is right)_ – Wait. You **definitely** did not say that out loud.

 **>** …No. No, I did not.

 **>** Oh God, I’m so sorry _*loud laughter in the background*_ **Cassie** stop laughing this is **really** embarrassing! I’m so, **so** sorry about that.

 **>** I _*sigh*_ It’s fine. I suppose it makes your Knowing more…believable.

 **>** Did you not believe me before? _*static*_ Oh, yeah, I guess it would be hard to **not** believe me when I’m answering questions you asked in your head.

 **> **R-Right. Um, thank you for your time, Eve.

 **>** You’re welcome! Have a nice day, Martin.

**-recording was poorer quality than expected, hard to make out certain parts. Transcript may not be accurate, but highly unlikely any useful information was given from this conversation. Ms. Leung’s statement may provide some context (JS)**

**Author's Note:**

> ahaha my first tma fic....i have a couple statement fic ideas bouncing around in my head like 10 windows screensavers running at the same time so like be on the lookout for more if my brain cell manages to stay alive. i'm very new to writing anything horror adjacent and i've always wanted to try, and what better way to do this than statement fics!!!! if i missed any cw's in the tags pls let me know :)
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/domokunrainboz/)
> 
> [tumblr](http://domokunrainbowkinz.tumblr.com/)


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